


Scars

by BlackSkyandRoses



Category: Mass Effect
Genre: Angst, But mostly fluff, F/M, Feelings, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Kaidan has feelings all over the place, Or love I guess, Reunions, Scars
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-06
Updated: 2015-09-06
Packaged: 2018-04-19 07:52:58
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,326
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4738538
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BlackSkyandRoses/pseuds/BlackSkyandRoses
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He loves to explore her body, to map out all of her scars. She has a lot of them, each one telling a story of a battle, of a time she fought and triumphed. Or, as he later finds out, the time she fell down a flight of stairs as a child. Or the time she took a dare as a reckless teenager. She has a lot of scars and a lot of stories. They each tell a little bit about her, reveal a little bit more of the woman behind the title of “Commander Shepard.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	Scars

**Author's Note:**

> Unbeta'd. Just a little piece I needed to get out, I think.

He loves to explore her body, to map out all of her scars. She has a lot of them, each one telling a story of a battle, of a time she fought and triumphed. Or, as he later finds out, the time she fell down a flight of stairs as a child. Or the time she took a dare as a reckless teenager. She has a lot of scars and a lot of stories. They each tell a little bit about her, reveal a little bit more of the woman behind the title of “Commander Shepard.”

At first, he only noticed her most prominent scar - the one that cut through her left eyebrow all the way over to her right cheek. It was hard to miss, and he was curious. He asked her one night in the mess hall, one marine to another. She told him, smiling slightly. A streamlined version of the events of the blitz, the one that had first catapulted her into the limelight. When she told him the story, it was with the practiced air of someone who has told the story many, many times. And expected to tell it many more. He in turn told her about the first scar he’d gotten in battle, being young and reckless and foolish, taking a bullet after pushing his biotics too hard. They stayed up most of the night, swapping stories and telling tales, comrades in arms.

As he got to know her, he noticed more and more scars. The one on her wrist, a burn from a hot thermal clip. The one across her shoulder, curling up to her collarbone, a knife slash from a desperate enemy trooper. A rounded mark on her bicep, a bullet hole from stepping in and breaking up a barfight. He started to wonder how many scars she had, and where they could be hiding. He caught himself trying to catch a glimpse while they changed into and out of their armour, or when her civilian clothes shifted.

Of course, he was there when she received several new ones too. One across her thigh, saving Williams from a crossfire. One across her ribs when the floor beneath them gives out, and she shoves both him and Tali to safety and slams down into the concrete thirty feet below. As they grow closer, she starts to show him more of her scars. He traces them, a gentle caress with his fingertips at first. Later he will trace them with his tongue and his teeth, brushing kisses across each and every one of them. When they make love for the first time, he surprises her by doing this over and over again. He commits them to memory, and traces them frequently. One night when he can’t sleep, he looks at them in the glow from her terminal and tries to match each one to it’s story. He doesn’t sleep until he gets them all right. He doesn’t like seeing her injured, but he likes her scars. They tell the story of who she is. Who she really is.   

When she dies, it’s her scars that he remembers the most. He makes a point of not forgetting, of forcing himself to remember. If only so that one person mourns Celeste, not Commander Shepard. So that one person will remember who she really was, and how many times she put herself in danger for the people she loved. Remembering her scars gives him scars of his own, but he remembers anyway. Forces himself to carry the burden of preserving her memory, just as she carried the burdens of so many others. He earns a few more scars, physical ones, and sobs out the story to his empty apartment and her memory, instead of laughing about it with her, taking her reprimands in good humour as she neglects the fact that she earns two or three scars for each one of his.

When she comes back, her scars are gone, and it feels like an essential part of her is gone too. It reinforces the idea that it isn’t really Commander Shepard or Celeste, and it unnerves him badly. Cerebus brought her back from the dead and rebuilt her from the ground up, but they didn’t give her back her scars. They gave him back the love of his life, but they took away an integral part of her. When he sees her on Horizon, he can’t figure out why it feels so wrong. He chalks it up to the obvious, the pain and confusion of seeing her returned. It isn’t until later, when he’s blackout drunk on the floor of his bedroom and thinking about her that he realizes. The first scar that he saw, the prominent one cutting through her left eyebrow across to her right cheek is gone. They’re probably all gone. He spends days wrestling with the idea that she might physically be here, but also gone. Is she the same person? Does she still love him? Does she have her memories, her likes and dislikes, her personality? Are they vanished with her scars?

He misses her so much. He’s left raw and aching all over again.

When he sees her again, back on earth, she has scars again. New ones. There’s one across her cheek again - not the same as the old one, but it’s there. It seems to shimmer faintly in the light. He wants to ask her about it. He wants to do a lot of things, but he’s scared. Scared she doesn’t love him. Scared that everything she felt for him died with her, but Cerebus didn’t bring it back with her. He throws up his barriers, keeps her at arm’s reach. Her death gave him scars, her rebirth gave him even more. They fight a lot, both of them hurting, unsure of what to do. Even the best relationship guides don’t have any advice for what to do when the love of your life dies and comes back unexpectedly two years later.

He finds her one night, sitting in the kitchen with a cup of coffee and a datapad. She’s wearing her civvies - a tank top and spandex shorts with an N7 hoodie. His heart aches at the sight, and he finally swallows his fears and indecision. He needs to know, one way or the other. So he takes a deep breath, sits across from her, and asks how she got the scar on her cheek, the one that seems to shimmer in the light.

She looks confused for a moment, but then he sees her eyes light up and she laughs. She remembers. She smiles at him the way she used to, and tells him the story. She’d saved Garrus from a tight spot on Omega, and wound up with a souvenir. Her first one of the new batch. In return, he tells her about some of his new scars.

As they grow closer, she shows him more of her new scars. He traces them with his fingertips at first, a gentle caress. It takes them time, and a lot of work, but eventually he sees all of her scars. He traces hers with his tongue and his teeth again, maps them on her body. He misses the old ones, but he grows to love the new ones as he lets himself believe that this is real, that she’s really back and in his arms again.

Of course, he’s there as she earns some new scars. They both do. Souvenirs and stories of battles where they fought and triumphed. Where they stood together and beat the odds. Eventually, the war is over, but there are still more scars. Surgery scars, as they rebuild Shepard for a second time. After eight months, he brings her home. And there are no more scars. Only stories.

When he can’t sleep, he memorizes her scars in the moonlight and matches each one to the story behind it.

 

 


End file.
